Ricoh Rolls Out New Ri 3000/Ri 6000 Wide-Format Garment Printers

Ricoh USA reports that it’s introduced a pair of new printers designed to make professional, high-quality apparel printing easier, faster, and more flexible. The RICOH Ri 3000/Ri 6000 Direct to Garment (DTG) color-inkjet printers are said to feature “an incredibly short route from design to print” with intuitive software and print speeds as fast as 27 seconds a shirt.

Ricoh entered the garment-printing market early last year with its acquisition of AnaJet (see here).

The new printers print at 600 dpi resolution, even, says Ricoh, on traditionally difficult media, such as dark poly 50/50 blends. They feature Ricoh’s own industrial-grade inkjet print heads, which are said to enable operators to produce high-volume orders as well as custom one-off prints. The firms says that these features combine “to provide an excellent springboard for those looking to launch garment printing as a standalone business or who want to expand their print portfolio.”

The RICOH Ri 3000/Ri 6000 printers also build upon AnaJet’s history of high-quality garment printing, and enable operators to print directly on shirts, socks, and canvas grocery bags, and to produce metallic foil applications.

Media options can include high-quality, durable prints on natural fibers, and light poly and dark garments with up to 50/50 blends. Water-based inks are said to provide soft, long-lasting and eye-catching vibrant designs. Built-in white-ink circulation is said to improve ink flow and minimizes waste, while making high-quality prints possible on even the darkest of garments. The 2.3″ of laser-assisted table-height automatic adjustment is said to enable printing on thick materials, such as hoodies with zippers. Granular drop-size controls help create even sharper applications.

For those looking to bring the printing of branded apparel in-house, the Ri 3000/Ri 6000’s low-turn times and high quality are said to help reduce outsourcing costs for gift shops, universities, and promotional products printers. Ricoh says the printers are designed specifically to make DTG printing fast and easy. A new color touchscreen control panel further streamlines the print process. The included AnaRIP software enables users to print files directly from a USB flash drive or any networked PC, without manual color separation, a time-consuming process traditionally required for screen printing.

Designs can be previewed and modified based on the color of fabric they are being printed to, so designs look the same on the screen as they will on the garment. This is said to minimize the need for costly test prints and in-depth technical adjustments. A print can be finished in as little as 27 seconds with the Ri 6000, or 51 seconds for the Ri 3000 and then the ink is cured via heat press or tunnel dryer.

Optional Spark software, designed to integrate with AnaRIP, offers intuitive personalization, various features and effects, and a customizable proposal system for instant quotes and more.

“Branded garments are one of the most popular graphic arts applications in the world. Offering them can encourage customers to turn to your business for more work. But for many businesses, it’s difficult to find a powerful, capable, flexible device they can use comfortably and efficiently,” commented John Fulena, vice president of Ricoh USA’s Commercial and Industrial Printing Group. “So we wanted to make DTG printing both as flexible and as streamlined as possible. With the RICOH Ri 3000 and Ri 6000, our customers can start bringing lucrative, high-quality garment-printing in-house easily. A job can now be finished in under 30 seconds with just a few simple clicks. That’s an amazing profit-per-second ratio.”

Th Ri 3000/Ri 6000 features Ricoh’s stainless-steel, industrial-grade print heads, which are self-cleaning and self-maintaining, and are rated at 100 billion actuations for higher output. The print heads are manufactured in an ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified factory in California. Ricoh and AnaJet are also bringing training and support to users, including one-on-one comprehensive training and telephone, email and on-site premium technical support with certified technicians.

The Ri 3000/Ri 60000 will be sold via AnaJet, with limited availability via Ricoh sales channels.

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